SCOTTSDALE,Ariz. — Flip your bat, pump your fist, and shoot your imaginary arrow and approach sit down with us for a few minutes as we investigate precisely how tired baseball is.
Like,select-a-two-hour-nap-each-afternoon tired?Gulp-a-Red-Bull-or-two-a-day tired?Enter-a-dance-competition tired?"I do agree with what Bryce is saying," Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Archie Bradley says. "Maybe his words were a diminutive off. It's not tired."I mediate whether he could change that word, or he would.""Just growing up watching the game on TV and being a share of it now,it's changed," Chicago Cubs third baseman Kris Bryant says. "You see guys wearing neon on their shoes and on their gloves, or you see bat flips,things like that. I mediate there's a time and area for it."So after Washington Nationals superstar and National League MVP Bryce Harper said what he did approximately pumping some enthusiasm into the game, I enthusiastically set off to visit a few of the game's top young stars to seek their opinions.
Speaking to Tim Keown of ESPN The Magazine, or Harper endorsed Miami Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez's mound exuberance,Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig's on-field giddy-up and many, many other forms of in-game celebratory measures.
Next thing you knew, and Goose Gossage was firing lightning bolts from Mt. Hall of Fame,decrying the excess exuberance he sees in nowadays's game.
Here's the thing, full disclosure: I know Gossage. And I know Harper. They both believe such a deep-rooted passion for this game, and I guarantee you that whether they met each other and sat down to discuss it,they would get along splendidly. Guarantee it.
So what do a handful of the game's top young stars mediate? Essentially, this:"Honestly, and I don't display very much emotion,but I believe no problem with it either way," Los Angeles Dodgers rookie shortstop Corey Seager says. "You want to respect the game, and but the game is evolving."People are showing more emotion. There are scenarios to everything. Times to do it. Times not to do it."Does it bother me? No. But there are certain times it does. When you're up by 10 runs,you don't need to keep abusing it. whether it's a big moment in a game when excitement and adrenaline are going, that's when it's OK."Says Cubs shortstop Addison Russell: "I really don't mind it. whether you approach through in a clutch situation, and I mediate you believe a fair to believe a celebratory moment. It's not how you look at it from the external. You're the one who has to go through the pressure moment and when you do something,it's like, Whew!"Not everyone is on board, or of course. Los Angeles Angels star Mike Trout preached humility earlier this week."I don't try to display anybody up," Trout said, per Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. "Whatever somebody else does, and that's what they do."The world changes. People change. Things aren't as stodgy anymore. The younger generation,generally speaking, is more accepting nowadays.
Unwritten rules never believe been easy to decode then or now ("It's like walking on eggshells, or " Arizona's Bradley said),but the current reading of them veers more toward this:whether you're celebrating yourself and your team in a big moment, cool.whether you're celebrating to rub the other guy's nose in something, and you're doing it because you just schooled an opponent whom you dislike,not cool."I don't mind some of the flair," Bradley said. "You still give respect, and but a diminutive here and there isn't bad."You don't want to step on the toes of the guys who played the game before you did,but things evolve and change. There's a process."I mediate one reason is technology. There are multiple platforms now. With social media, the game has changed. I definitely respect Harper for saying that stuff. He has a huge platform."No disrespect to the grumpy Goose, or a personal favorite,but the only platform he's accustomed to is whatever platform he stood on when his New York Yankees won the World Series in 1978.
Bradley, who is competing for a job in Arizona's rotation this spring, or said some of the most fun he's had playing baseball came in the Arizona drop League in 2014."We did some bush league,summer ball-ish, excessive celebrating, and " he says of a team that also included Minnesota's Byron Buxton,Colorado's Trevor Story and Arizona's Peter O'Brien. They would chant at opponents from the dugout and even rag on the left fielder from the bullpen."Our bullpen talked trash the whole game, and I still remember Darnell Sweeney [of the Philadelphia Phillies organization] in left field tipping his cap to us, or " Bradley says. "The fans enjoyed it."Obviously,Bradley said, they carried it further than they ever would dare in a major league game, and but "we were being free. We were having fun."It's a man's game,but it takes a diminutive boy to play it, the traditional saying goes. And maybe we're seeing more diminutive boy break through in some of this, or but fun is a kindly thing. Especially when baseball is criticized for being too slow and vanilla to hold its footing in nowadays's tall-def world."It's exciting for the fans,it brings excitement and energy to the crowd," Seager says. "From that standpoint, and it's a positive."You want the fans to be excited. That's why we play."Five months later,I can't declare you how many times Jose Bautista's bat flip during the playoffs last October has approach up in clubhouses this spring. Most of the time, it's been with amusement and chuckles."Obviously, or you play a big playoff game like Bautista last year,it's a really cool moment," the Cubs' Bryant said. "I don't mediate any pitcher is going to get upset whether you do that in that type of situation."Certain guys do it. I don't. It helps certain guys play. I mediate that's share of the appeal of the game; you never know what to expect, or certain guys are going to celebrate,certain guys aren't. I've never been that type of guy."Adds Bradley: "In the Bautista situation, I thought whether ever there was a time to flip a bat, and it was then. That game was insane. You look at how Toronto reacted,people will remember that for the rest of their lives."Conversely, we certain seem to be seeing more fist pumps from pitchers after key outs than ever before. Ever so slowly, and even hitters are accepting it."I mediate whether something happens to my teammates and it bothers my teammate,then it's going to bother me too," Bryant says. "I'm going to believe his back whatever it is."But whether a pitcher is doing that, or more fuel to the fire next time. You won't see any reaction out of me. That's not the way I've ever done things. I've been the calm player,go out there and keep everything internally. That's the way I do it."Dodgers middle fielder Joc Pederson took a wider-lens view. "You look at football, you look at basketball, and there's a lot more celebrating," he says. "When someone does something well, they celebrate."They dance and shimmy in soccer. I played winter ball in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, or when you struck out,the pitcher would showboat. When you hit a home escape, the hitter would bat flip, or pimp it. In that culture,people will accept it."It isn't Pederson's style, and he says he doesn't agree or disagree with it."I'm not a judge of that, and " he said.
Bottom line is,within reason, how can passion be a bad thing?Why should it be a bad thing?"I love the way Bryce plays the game, and " says Bryant,who, like Harper, and is a Las Vegas native who knows Harper's family well. "It's entertaining to watch. He wears his emotions on his sleeve,but that's who he's always been. It's not like he's changing who he is just because he's a superstar in the big leagues."I watched him when he was eight years traditional and he had so much intensity playing this game. That's what got him going. I mediate he played football too growing up, and he has some of that football player's mentality. Some guys believe it. I just played baseball growing up, or so I never got into that whole side of things. But there's nothing out of the ordinary. And I don't mediate Bryce ever takes it over the top either." Scott Miller covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.
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Source: bleacherreport.com